Roads in a Yellow Wood
by Ellynne
Summary: Avon is lost in the woods. Fortunately, the man who finds him is just a harmless local named Mr. Gold.


I own nothing of Blake's 7 or Once Upon a Time. Just to say it.

The man's name was Mr. Gold, a local. He reminded Avon of Vila in some ways. A small man with the same completely innocent smile Vila had – the one Vila used whenever he was around someone he found in the least threatening (this category included most of the lifeforms in the known universe, as far as Avon could tell, including puppies). He even had the same coloring.

But there was something about Gold that made Avon uneasy with that assessment, something sardonic in his eyes when he seemed most self-effacing.

He handed Avon a black coat, a 'trench coat' he called it. "Most of your clothes will pass muster if no one gets too good a look at them. But that jacket and those gloves have to go," Gold told him.

Gold, in the brief time Avon had known him, had made his opinions clear about Avon's clothing – and about idiots who wandered into worlds where they didn't belong without knowing the first thing about them.

Since Avon agreed – he'd told Blake the same thing, often enough – he decided not to argue.

Gold had found Avon wandering around in the woods, disoriented and with no clear memory of what had happened this time before he came here. He'd taken Avon to this cabin, given him a chair to sit down in, and fixed him tea while asking questions.

The coat, Avon noted, seemed long on him. He doubted it would fit Gold.

"It's Jefferson's," Gold said, noticing the look Avon was giving it. "One of our local eccentrics. He rents this cabin sometimes. Always manages to leave something behind. Except his hats. He never manages to lose those. Pity really. Those things are a hatter's nightmare, and I don't mean that figuratively . . . ."

Avon, based on past experiences, couldn't help wondering if Gold was the sort of serial killer who liked to lure people up to his cabin in the woods before chopping them up into little bits and keeping their coats as souvenirs, but the man walked with a cane and had no obvious weapons – and Avon had been considerably more clear headed and steady after drinking Gold's tea than before. If Gold had wanted to kill him, he would have had a much easier time of it when he first found Avon.

Still, Avon let Gold walk ahead of him as they started down the dirt path that (Gold assured him) would eventually lead to Gold's car. "Can you get the shovel?" Gold said, pointing to the shovel leaning by the door on the cabin porch. "I have trouble walking with it."

Well, it was a weapon. Unless getting Avon to hold a weapon was part of whatever plot Gold might or might not be hatching. "Why'd you bring it up here?"

"Doing a bit of gardening. The place always needs a bit of work after one of Jefferson's stays."

"A party animal?"

Gold made a derisive sound. "Hardly. He's almost a hermit. There are people who've lived in town for years who've never set eyes on him. He has . . . odd ideas."

For a heart sinking moment, Avon wondered if this Jefferson was a friend of Blake's (maybe even the reason he was here, if he could just remember what had happened). Just when he thought he was going to get out of whatever Blake had sent him here to do, too. "What sort of odd ideas?"

"Oh, he thinks the entire town is under a curse. We are all, according to him, creatures from other worlds – not other planets, mind you, other worlds, other realities – who have been given false memories to make us fit in this one. "

False, implanted memories. Wonderful. Avon had dealt with that before.

Though, maybe he was lucky this time. Maybe this Jefferson really was crazy.

Gold went on cheerfully. "There is a wicked queen involved, of course, an evil enchantress."

Avon decided not to ask if her name was Servalan. He tried for something safer. "What does she look like?"

Gold thought it over. "Beautiful, I suppose, if you like backstabbing psychopaths. Black hair, black eyes, a decided preference for red lipstick and outrageous outfits – she wouldn't have seen anything wrong with your jacket and gloves."

Servalan.

"She also happens to be our mayor."

Or maybe not. "Your what?"

Gold shrugged. "I told you, Jefferson thinks we're _all_ creatures from another world. Regina Mills, our mayor, according to him, is the evil queen."

"I . . . see."

"I wouldn't worry too much about it. Jefferson is the only one who believes it. And Henry, the mayor's son. But he's only ten. He's hardly the first child to decide his mother is evil."

"It does seem a bit . . . ridiculous."

"Oh, I don't know. There's you, after all."

"Excuse me?"

"This planet is called Earth. In the local calendar, it's the year 2011. Space travel is mostly limited to putting things in orbit. No one has travelled farther than the moon. You're farther from home than you've ever been."

And mentally deranged killer was back on the possibilities list.

"It's probably something Jefferson did," Gold went on. "He's always trying to find a way home. Not that I blame him, but you wouldn't believe the trouble he causes. I always seem to get stuck cleaning up his messes. And, the worst of it is," he added plaintively, "None of his attempts ever _work._

"On the bright side, the kind of rifts he can make never let more than two or three creatures through. The triffids, now, those were a problem, and that huge guppy – it's over in Lake Champlain these days – was set to ruin fishing season till I got it to leave. Not that we get many fishermen, but Ruby was getting ready to hunt it down on principle and _that_ would have raised far too many questions."

Avon ignored the trivia as an attempt to put him off the main point. "You think I'm from another universe?"

Mr. Gold stopped walking down the path and turned around, smiling, to look at Avon. "And you're wondering exactly how insane I am, aren't you? Which means you missed the most important thing I said."

"Which is?"

"Two or _three."_

Naturally, that was when both the Federation troopers attacked.

They knocked down Avon and got the shovel out of his hands before he could react to defend himself.

Then, they turned their attention on Gold.

Gold, madman that he seemed to be, only looked at them curiously, waiting to see what they would do.

What they did – or what one of them did, the other was still securing Avon – was point a gun at Gold.

Avon could tell a second before it happened the trooper meant to shoot. He tried to shove off the trooper trying to manacle him and get the shovel, the only weapon available, knowing it was too late. The gun went off –

And hit a tree directly behind the spot where Gold had been standing a moment before.

He had dodged. Somehow, he was now ten feet closer and directly in front of the trooper. His cane came up, the golden handle burying itself in the trooper's throat.

Federation armor – the soft fabric actually did have defensive properties – was supposed to give _some_ protection against physical blows, especially in vulnerable areas like the neck. But, Avon heard the sickening crack as the man went down and saw the odd angle of his head.

The trooper hit the ground before his partner could even raise his gun. Gold looked at the other man and . . . _smiled._

If you could call that demented, toothy rictus a smile.

He laughed, a high pitched, insane cackle.

Then, casually, Gold threw his cane at the trooper.

Normal canes weren't supposed to double as spears, Avon thought.

The man fell off Avon, the cane buried in his chest.

Then, Gold limped over, just like a lame man trying to manage without a cane or crutch, his expression nothing but a normal, long suffering grimace. He pulled his cane out of the trooper, wiping off the end on a clean spot of the man's uniform.

"See what I mean? Jefferson is a menace," Gold said. He pulled himself up – slowly and painfully, as if it really were difficult, and not as if he could dodge guns and casually kill people before they could blink. He paused, a thought striking him. "I didn't get it wrong, did I? Those were enemies of yours, not friends?"

"Yes," Avon said. "Enemies."

"Well, that's all right then," Gold started down the path again. He looked back at Avon. "Don't just stand there. Get the shovel. And bring the bodies. I don't know how it is where you come from, but people here tend to ask questions when they find corpses in the woods. I've got a place for them over here."

"A place for them," Avon repeated

"Of course. I told you I was gardening, didn't I? I have a hole all ready to plant them in." He seemed to sense that Avon hadn't moved.

He stopped, his hand caressing the handle of his cane. "Please, don't tell me this bothers you."

"Not at all," Avon lied. "Only . . . you seem ready enough to get rid of strangers. I can't help wondering whether I won't be one of them."

Mr. Gold smiled. It wasn't the demon's smile of moments before or the innocent, timid, Vila-like smile from when they'd first met.

This smile, Avon realized, was very like his own.

Gold waived a hand at the corpses. "They're dead because they weren't of any use to me. And they decided to make themselves annoying. But, I expect better things of you.

"You don't want to prove me wrong, do you Avon?"


End file.
